Learning Naturally

In all the years that I've been studying modern educational ideas (my focus being from the later half of the 1700s or so, to the present), I've felt drawn to the ideas that favor natural ways of learning, and that focus on coming to know things deeply and for yourself. These sorts of educational approaches are often good at helping learners develop their observation skills. They often do well at adapting to where each learner is developmentally and their readiness to learn something new. They often focus on the whole range of a person's developing abilities—physical, mental, spiritual, emotional. There is often a respect for a child's instincts to learn through play, to explore nature, to learn skills that they see adults use. Besides these common points, there is a lot of diversity, depending on what the educators valued, what they believed that the goals of education should be, and their cultural and religious perspectives.

It is interesting to me to see how such diverse thinkers and teachers have followed so many different paths to reach so many similar ideas. Sometimes it is because of having shared influences, but many times their writings show that they are completely unaware that others have written similar thoughts; they are simply sharing the conclusions that they themselves have reached because of trying to find solutions to the problems their schools have faced. It feels meaningful that the same ideas have been found independently by so many people, and that the ideas have made such a positive difference in so many different circumstances.

It has helped me a lot to be exposed to these educational ideas. It has led to so much progress in making sense of the very confusing life I have lived, in healing, in learning how to adapt to my disability better. I'm learning how to trust myself more—to trust that God has designed us to be able to learn for ourselves, and to be able to learn how to help others learn. I think it's good to trust that God designed us the right way, so that we can progress and help others progress as we learn about the divinity God placed within us, and as we choose to develop these special gifts from God and reject any influence from within ourselves or from around us that could destroy the divine within us.